介绍了在非近轴光束的表示理论、非近轴光束的整体参量、轨道角动量、横向效应以及光的自旋霍尔(Hall)效应等有限光束的物理性质研究中所取得的进展。以平面波谱表示方法为基础,发展了一套有限光束的表示理论,在规定光束全局琼斯矢量(称为广义琼斯矢量)的基础上,提出了一个全局特征单位矢量,发现这两个全局量在有限光束的表示中具有重要的作用。利用该表示理论很好地解决了非近轴光束的角动量问题,发现非近轴光束的总角动量可以严格地分解成自旋和轨道两部分,但是两者都依赖于由偏振椭圆度表征的光束的偏振状态。采用特征单位矢量的变化可以很好地解释近两年来国内外学者从实验上分别观测到折射光和反射光的所谓自旋Hall效应。

Our research of the representation theory of nonparaxial light beams and their physical properties such as a global parameter of a unit vector,the orbital angular momentum,the transverse effect,and the so-called spin Hall effect of light is introduced. On the basis of the plane-wave spectrum expansion,a representation formalism for finite beams is developed. After postulating a Jones vector that acts as a global quantity to represent the beam′s polarization,another global quantity,a unit vector is introduced. Both of the two global quantities are important in the representation formalism of finite beams. By using this formalism,the total angular momentum of an arbitrary free electromagnetic field is separated rigorously into spin and orbital parts,both of which are dependent on the state of polarization and the polarization ellipticity. In addition,the observed so-called spin Hall effect of light in both refraction and reflection is explained satisfactorily in terms of the change of the characteristic unit vector.